The Sound of Silence
by Penguins Stealing My Sanity
Summary: Hawkeye, after being seriously wounded, has a mental breakdown, leaving it up to BJ and Sidney Freedman to patch him back up. NO slash, but plenty of angst. A little dark and grim, with some slightly bloody descriptions and talk of suicide.
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings:** This isn't too happy. It's also got a few semi-graphic descriptions of wounds, so if you don't like that sort of thing… There is no slash, unless you consider a deep bond of friendship to be slash.

I own nothing—not the lyrics you see below, and not the characters. Which is probably good, because if I do this sort of thing to people I _don't_ own, just imagine what I'd do if I _did_ own them.

Reviews would be much appreciated. I could probably continue this, if it's liked enough.

_Hello, darkness, my old friend  
I've come to talk with you again  
Because a vision softly creeping  
Left its seeds while I was sleeping  
And the vision  
That was planted in my brain  
Still remains  
Within the sound of silence  
_-"The Sound of Silence," Simon and Garfunkel

**- The Sound of Silence -**

The screaming was the worst; BJ could hear it as he scrubbed in, and it made him want to scream in return, because he couldn't think of anything else to do and his mind was already screaming. He was still in shock, his mind numb, as his hands performed the habitual task of scrubbing in. "Can't they make him stop?" BJ asked softly of Margaret as she worked the gloves over his hands. She looked up into his face, saw the pain in his eyes, and quickly looked away.

"They're waiting for you, doctor," she said softly, tying the mask around the top of his head.

BJ closed his eyes for a moment, trying to get himself calm, to get his head to cooperate. He couldn't operate in this sort of condition, _no one_ could, but no one else could do this either. It had to be him, and wasn't that just fitting? He pulled in a deep breath, and hurried into the O.R.

It was louder here, the screaming, punctuated by wails of pain and the ever-present clatter of surgical tools, nurses rushing around and ultimately just getting in the way—why were there so many of them? One patient didn't require a dozen nurses…

He could see Potter sitting at the head of the table, talking softly, trying to still the screaming; Kellye was laying out the surgical instruments, and BJ could see the tears on her dark cheeks as she turned towards him for a moment. He stepped up to the side of the table, Margaret standing across from him, and BJ allowed himself to look down at Potter and the face he held between his gloved hands.

A few superficial cuts on the face, far from urgent—but they gushed blood, looking horrific, staining the whole side of his face red. Black hair slicked back with blood, familiar features transformed into those of some horror-movie monster. But the eyes—wide with terror, pupils tiny pricks of black against the blue—the eyes were the same, he'd recognize those eyes anywhere, even with the pain-crazed cast to them. Hawk_eye_, it was the eyes, always the eyes. Pained, terrified blue met grieved, uncertain blue, and between the screams, the wrenching pain, a whisper slipped out through the bloody lips, a question, a plea for help, a sign of relief, a show of trust: "Beej."

"I'm here, Hawk," BJ said softly, surprised at how steady his own voice was—so different from how he felt. "Put him under," he said to Potter. _Please, just make the screaming stop…I can't think with him screaming…_ Potter slid the mask over the sobbing, screaming, bloody mouth, and a deadly silence descended over the O.R. _Silent as the grave, they say… Don't think like that, he's just asleep, he needs to be quiet or you can't work._ But the silence was almost worse than the screaming, because at least when he was screaming BJ knew he was still alive; but the silence could be sleep or death, and no telling at any moment which it was.

BJ turned his attention to the mangled body, the body that couldn't _possibly_ be Hawkeye's body, Hawkeye didn't look like that. The right side of his body had taken the brunt of the explosion—the arm, from the elbow down, was just _gone_, vanished—now you see it, now you don't, like magic. A gaping belly wound, some shell fragments lodged in his chest, knee cap looked shattered.

"Just get him fit enough for transfer," Potter said softly. "Nothing fancy."

BJ still felt numb, frozen; he couldn't move, couldn't stop staring at the ruin of his friend's body. _This can't be Hawkeye…he doesn't look like this…_

"BJ?" Margaret said softly, looking at him over the body that wasn't Hawkeye's.

"You all right, son?" Potter asked a beat later.

BJ almost laughed. He was so _not_ all right, he'd nearly come full circle back to all right. He had to be all right…he was the only one who could do this, and if he couldn't… "Clamp," he said abruptly, springing into action as quickly as if someone had just stuck a key in his back and wound him up. "Let's get this bleeder closed off…"

Time became meaningless, irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was Potter's voice, calling out with impossible calm whenever Hawkeye's blood pressure dropped too low. If BJ could just stop thinking of the body as his friend's…if he could convince himself this was just another faceless soldier, wounded at the front lines…it would be easier, easier to stay calm, to think, to save his friend's life…

He saw Father Mulcahy hovering near the end of the table, his face pale, Bible in one hand and rosary in the other. BJ wanted to yell at him to get out, Hawk wasn't dying, not if BJ had anything to say about it, but he couldn't take his eyes away from the mess the shell had made of his friend, and when he looked up again, Mulcahy was gone. "Move, Margaret, I can't see anything. How's he doing?" he demanded of Potter.

"Fine, he's just fine. You're doing fine, too, son."

Hours, days, years, later, BJ stepped back from the table, finished; and he turned and sprinted from the O.R., into the scrub room, tearing off his mask and gloves, leaning over the sink, breathing heavily and trying to keep from heaving up his breakfast. He could hear the flurry of activity as Klinger and one of the other corpsmen lifted Hawkeye and carried him out of the O.R., to the chopper that would take him to Tokyo, where better doctors would do what BJ hadn't been able to.

The door opened behind him, and a hand rested on his shoulder—Potter, good old Dad. "You saved his life, BJ," the colonel said softly. "He wouldn't've made it if you hadn't been here."

"It wouldn't have happened to him if I hadn't been here," BJ said bitterly. He rubbed furiously at his eyes—_Don't cry, damnit, _don'tcry—and tried to straighten up; but his stomach cramped, twisted, and a sob escaped from his mouth as he collapsed against the sink.

"Take it easy," Potter said—calm, always calm, _how could he be so calm?_ "You did a fine job, son, damn fine job—no one could ask any more of you, given the situation."

"If I hadn't let him go—"

"Damnit, Hunnicutt, none of us could've guessed something like this would happen, least of all you! And don't you _dare_ say it should've been _you_ in that jeep, because we both know that if it _had_ been, you'd be _dead_ now! You got the chance to save the life of a damn good man, and you did more than anyone else could've done. _You saved his life!_"

The tears began to fall then, splashing softly into the sink. Potter sighed, and put an arm around the surgeon's hunched shoulders, offering what little comfort he could and knowing it wasn't nearly enough. "Come on, BJ," he finally said. "I think we could both use a drink."

&.o.&.o.&

It'd been over a year since BJ had set foot in a real hospital, and he found himself disoriented for a moment—white-washed walls, tile floors, neat rows of clean beds with peaceful patients, nurses in white moving about with confidence and smiles. An orderly came to his aid, and pointed him towards a bed halfway down the left row. BJ forced himself to lift one foot, move it forward, _there we go, now the other one_, until he found himself standing by the side of the bed, looking down at the battered and bandaged face. The right eye was covered up by a crisp white bandage, but the left one blinked slowly open, the bright blue dulled, dimmed—_that's wrong, that's wrong, his eyes aren't supposed to look like that_. "BJ?" he whispered.

BJ swallowed hard, tried to smile confidently, and sat down on the stool at the side of the bed and carefully put his arm on Hawkeye's shoulder. "Yeah, it's me. The nurses wouldn't rest until someone came to see that you were doing all right." He had to swallow again, Adam's apple bobbing jerkily. "Are you?"

"Doing all right?" Hawkeye tipped his head, looking down at himself—leg in traction, stomach bandaged up tightly (to keep his guts from spilling out, he worried, even though the nurses had assured him that wasn't true), the arm—he couldn't think about the arm, the arm he could still _feel_. "I don't know," he said honestly, his voice cracked and broken, hardly recognizable.

BJ rubbed a hand over his face, his eyes worried, uncertain. "Hawk…I'm—"

"Don't say it," Hawkeye snarled fiercely, his face twisting, so open and vulnerable and _hurt_, a baby bird fallen from its nest, wings broken, lost, confused, terrified. Tears leaked from the exposed eye, making rivers into the gray-tinged forest of black hair at his temples, and Hawkeye turned his face away, ashamed and angry and confused. And because he didn't know what else to do, BJ dropped to his knees next to the bed and reached out to put one of his hands on Hawkeye's face; and when the wounded man turned to look at him, blue meeting blue, BJ leaned forward and rested his forehead against Hawkeye's, both silent, both grieving, their tears mingling on the older man's patched-up face.

The nurses and orderlies who saw weren't shocked by the display—they'd seen too much of pain, and knew well the many ways in which humans reacted to pain; this was nothing new to them. And the patients who saw, stared—not out of shock or suspicion, as BJ would later worry, but because they all longed for a similar bond, an unlikely friendship formed in an unlikely place, a friendship whose sole purpose was to maintain sanity, despite any frills and ribbons that might be tied around it. They kept each other sane in the place they called Hell, supported, carried when necessary; and Hawkeye needed to be carried now, needed the impossible bond to buoy him through the present pain and the pain to come, because he teetered dangerously close to the edge, and one wrong move, one wrong breath, could send him pitching into the darkness, the madness, that unbearable, screaming silence whose face he'd stared into and been able to turn away from because of the line of light that kept him from sliding over the edge, the anchor that kept him grounded on this side of sanity. He fed on that light, drew it desperately into himself from the warmth against his face, the pools of blue that wouldn't look away, that never looked away. And as he cried, sobbed his pain into his friend's shoulder, he could hear the darkness, the silence, retreating, moving away, fought off by the glow of the reaffirmed bond, and for the first time in a very long time, Hawkeye felt at peace.


	2. Chapter 2

**Warnings:** Still dark and angsty (maybe even more so than the last chapter), this time with some passing mentions of suicide.

**- The Sound of Silence -  
****Chapter Two**

Radar met BJ at the airport, unusually somber and even paler than usual. "Sir," he asked anxiously, "is Cap'n Hawkeye—I mean, Cap'n Pierce, sir, is he okay, sir?"

"As okay as can be expected," BJ said tiredly. "He's stable, and he's still holding in there. Can you get my bag, Radar?" He fell heavily into to the passenger seat of the jeep while Radar scurried off, and closed his eyes, longing for his warm, soft bed back in Mill Valley. But all he had to look forward to was the uncomfortable Army cot back in the Swamp, the Swamp that would be too quiet without Hawkeye bouncing around and taunting Frank. He was _not_ looking forward to that.

"What's gonna happen to him?" Radar asked as he climbed in next to BJ. "Are the sendin' him home, or…?"

"I didn't ask. But I assume he'll go home as soon as he's fit to make the journey… They wouldn't make him stay here, not…how he is."

Radar didn't say anything for a moment; then, softly, "Is it real bad, BJ?"

"It's not good."

They spoke little on the drive to the 4077th, a heavy, uncomfortable silence, man and young man each lost in his own grim thoughts. _His arm,_ BJ couldn't stop thinking, _he lost his _arm_. And it's his _right_ arm—! It'd be different if it were the left…he'd still have the dominant hand, could still do _something_…_

By the time the jeep rolled into the compound, a crowd of anxious nurses, corpsmen, and doctors had gathered, pressing in close to the jeep, each voice shouting to be heard above the others. BJ tried to answer the questions he could hear, but for every question he answered, it was repeated five times; it was finally Radar who stood up on the seat of the jeep and shouted for silence.

There it was again, that suffocating lack of sound, the oppressively utter silence. BJ cleared his throat just to assure himself the world hadn't gone silent, and then he spoke to the crowd, his voice soft but carrying: "He's stable. They're taking good care of him over in Tokyo—"

"We could take better care of him here," one of the nurses interrupted; BJ couldn't see who, but it sounded like Able.

"He's doing as best as anyone could expect. There's…not much else to say." Except for that unspoken question, the one they were all thinking but couldn't give voice to, because they knew what the answer would be; it was what had struck BJ on the flight back from Tokyo, a chilling thought that had stopped his drink halfway to his mouth: _I've never seen a surgeon with only one arm…_

&.o.&.o.&

BJ was in the Swamp trying to smile at his latest letter from Peg, but he couldn't seem to find the same joy in the words he once had. The whole world seemed a little blacker, a little grimmer, and news of the daughter he hardly even knew only served to darken his mood. Frank was sitting in his own corner, and for once, amazingly, he seemed to be shaken rather than amused at Hawkeye's general misfortune. He'd said little in the past few days, often glancing over at Hawkeye's empty cot—just as BJ kept looking to the door, waiting for his friend to stroll in with some extravagant pronouncement and a casual insult thrown in Frank's direction. The whole camp was quiet, gloomy—how could it not be? And much as he hated the grimness, BJ knew he would be furious if the others tried to force a light mood. Better they grieved than tried to pretend nothing was wrong.

Boots pounded out in the compound, and the door flew open—and BJ looked up, quickly, expecting against all logic to see windblown black hair and sparkling blue eyes. But it was only Radar, face panicked and pale; and BJ, sensing bad news, was already on his feet by the time Radar gasped out, "Colonel Potter wants to see you, Cap'n Hunnicutt. He says it's—" He glanced at Frank. "—important."

BJ raced from the Swamp, Radar at his heels. "Hawkeye?" BJ asked tightly, and Radar nodded.

Potter was pacing behind his desk when BJ burst into the office, breathing heavily, eyes flashing with fear. Potter turned to face him, his face drawn, looking older, much older, than his years, and BJ's heart simultaneously sank to his feet and jumped to his throat. "Sit down, son," Potter said softly.

Radar shoved the chair under BJ as he collapsed, and his breath rattled as asked softly, "Is he…gone?"

"No," Potter said, "but not for a lack of trying."

Relief washed through BJ, but it was followed closely by the return of panic. He leaned forward, hands gripping the edge of the chair hard enough that his knuckles turned white, and demanded, "_He tried to kill himself_?"

Potter nodded grimly, lowering himself tenderly into his own chair. "A nurse delivering pills left her tray in his reach, and he swallowed everything he could grab before the orderlies pulled him away." BJ wanted to shove his fingers into his ears and scream, didn't want to hear any more, but he couldn't lift his hands, couldn't move, and Potter kept talking. "They've got him stable again, and under constant watch. Sidney Freedman is on his way to Tokyo even as we speak, to do what he can."

_Hawkeye,_ BJ's mind wailed, _Hawk, why? You were fine when I talked to you. Why would you do this to yourself—to me?! Why, _why, WHY

Potter put the glass into BJ's hand, and he lifted it blindly to his mouth, sucking in the mercifully numbing liquid and feeling it spread through his body. If he could drink enough of it, maybe, just maybe, his whole body would go numb, and he wouldn't have to feel anymore.

&.o.&.o.&

Sidney Freedman walked into the post-op ward, strolling calmly between the rows of beds, a clipboard and file held against his stomach. He looked from side to side, his head swiveling constantly, occasionally smiling or nodding to the patients, until he came to the bed he was looking for. The orderly sitting guard rose to give Freedman his seat, wandering just out of earshot but not far enough away that he couldn't come to his patient's aid if he needed to.

Hawkeye lay still in the bed, his head turned to the side, single visible eye glazed and staring blankly. Freedman sat down, propping one foot up on the exposed bed frame and leaning against the back of his chair, watching one of the most intriguing patients he'd ever had.

"You're wasting your time," Hawkeye said hoarsely, his voice thick and unlike what Freedman was used to hearing from the man.

"Am I?" he asked mildly. "Your doctors don't seem to think so." Silence descended, briefly, broken only by the usual sounds of an active hospital. "I'd ask how you were feeling, but I think I can already guess what your answer would be."

"That's what they pay you for, isn't it?"

"Why don't you tell me about it?"

Hawkeye finally turned his head to look at Freedman, and asked incredulously, "_Why_? Why don't you tell me, doctor, why I shouldn't just lay here and think up another way to end this nightmare? Or, better yet, why don't you find me a gun and I can end the nightmare right now?"

"That's not what you want, Hawkeye."

The familiar sardonic smile/grimace crossed Hawkeye's face, shaded by pain and grief. "Don't I? Well then, Dr. Freud, why don't you tell me what I _do_ want?"

Freedman lifted his hands in an eloquent little shrug. "That's what I'm here to find out."

"Well, like I said: you're wasting your time." Hawkeye turned his face away, and silence descended again. Freedman continued to watch his patient, and Hawkeye continued to ignore him, until he finally said, bitterly, "It's not nice to stare at cripples, you know."

Freedman leaned forward, elbow on knee, chin in hand. "Is that how you think of yourself?"

Hawkeye's head swung back around, and the stump of his right arm, wrapped heavily in bandages, lifting from the bed just as his whole arm did. He'd always talked with his hands, Hawkeye. Hand, now. "Lame, disabled, handicapped, impaired, defective, broken, damaged—you take your pick, I'm rather fond of 'worthless'."

"You know, it's amazing what they can do with prosthetics these days."

"Ah, yes, and then I can play Captain Hook in the Army's production of Peter Pan. Quite fitting, don't you think?" And he turned away again.

"I hear BJ came to visit you a few days ago."

Freedman saw Hawkeye's face tighten, darken, and knew he was getting close to the source of the matter. "Yeah, so what?"

"So how did that make you feel?"

"Oh, cut the psychoanalysis mumbo-jumbo, Sidney. Why don't you just come out and say it?" His voice lowered in timbre as he dramatized a conversation between himself and some unknown other—perhaps the voice at the back of everyone's head, the whispering voice of fear and doubt and self-loathing. " 'Has it occurred to you yet that it's highly unlikely you'll ever operate again?' Why yes, good sir, it has. 'And does it make you _angry_ to know that the only person who gives a damn about you has abandoned you to your grim fate?' Bullseye! Nurse, get this man a prize."

"That's enough, Hawkeye," Freedman said gently, reaching out to rest a hand on his patient's shoulder.

Hawkeye jerked away from the touch as if he'd been burned, and his voice rose louder. Those nearby stopped what they were doing and turned to watch, sadistically curious as to just what a mental breakdown looked like. "Enough? That's enough, you say? Oh no, no—you want me to open up, well here it is! Here's me, laying my soul bare! So go on, Freud, grab your scalpel and poke around a bit—let's see if we can find something else I've repressed, shall we? You seem to like that sort of thing. Go on, ask me about my childhood—I'll tell you about the time my cousin beat me to a pulp because I wouldn't give him my candy bar. Or—or about the time—oh, you'll like this one—I came home early from school because I wasn't feeling well, and found dear old dad doing the unspeakable with—and here's the kicker—my _dentist_! That not good enough? Okay, okay, let me try this one—"

"Hawkeye—"

"You don't want to hear about my fear of commitment? Okay, all right, we'll talk about what _you_ want to talk about. You want me to tell you about the explosion? Well, let me see…I was riding along in my merry chariot, and not a hundred yards from camp—BOOM!" He brought his hand down on the bedframe, a resounding crack that split the sudden stillness of the room. All activity had stopped, all eyes turned towards the raving patient. But Hawkeye seemed not to notice, his eye glittering with madness and tears, unable to stop the flood of words and emotions. "No, no, let's go back in time—why was I in the jeep, you ask? Well I, being the kind, generous man I am, offered to take the place of my _good_ friend BJ Hunnicutt at an aid station, since he was feeling a little down, what with his family thousands of miles away and all—nice of me, isn't it? Well, you know what they say—"

"Nurse," Freedman called, to someone, anyone. "Sedation…"

"—'no good deed goes unpunished'. So this is my punishment. I quite literally step in front of a bullet for him, and he leaves me here to rot amongst the rest of the Lost Boys. He'll go off and get to see his family again, waltz home without a scratch into open arms and smiling faces, and what do I get? A pat on the head, a nice 'attaboy'—and then, for the finale, a sucker punch to the groin. So how does it make me feel, was that your question? Well I'll tell…I'll tell you…you…" His voice trailed off as the sedatives took effect, his eyes rolling back and the lids sliding shut, head tipping to the side.

Sidney Freedman sat still for a long time afterwards, simply watching Hawkeye; even in sleep, his face was drawn, haunted, lines etched into his skin that Sidney had never seen before. He was not a well man, but it didn't take a psychiatrist to see that. With a sigh, Freedman rose and rested his hand briefly on the wounded man's hair, murmuring, "You can't get rid of me that easily." And he turned and walked calmly from the ward. Sidney Freedman always enjoyed a challenge, and it seemed Hawkeye Pierce was always willing to provide one.

**To Be Continued**


	3. Chapter 3

**Warnings:** Slightly less angsty, but I'm not very nice to BJ. Other than that, this chapter is pretty harmless.

**- The Sound of Silence -  
****Chapter Three**

"Come on, Frank," BJ snapped. "We've got patients backed up."

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Frank wailed, tiny eyes slightly panicked above his surgical mask.

"Well, do it faster! You've been working on that kid nearly an hour."

"Colonel!" Frank whined desperately.

"He's right, Burns," Potter barked. "Speed it up. The luxury of time is one thing we haven't got right now. Radar—"

"He's the phone, sir, I've got Major Freedman on the line."

"Sidney?" Potter asked as Radar put the phone up to his head. "How're things up there? Good, good…listen, you're in tight with a few of the generals, aren't you? Well, we're up to our chins in patients—"

"Those of us who have chins," BJ added.

"Oh, phooey!" Frank shouted, and subsided to mumbling to himself, though he grew steadily louder and more furious, until he finally shouted at BJ, "—And what makes you so special, huh? What've you got that I haven't got?"

"Skill, Frank?" BJ suggested. "Patience, Frank? A _brain_, Frank?"

"That's enough, Hunnicutt," Potter said tiredly. "What? Oh, sure, Sid. Radar, give the phone to BJ."

"Sidney!" BJ shouted with forced joviality, tucking the phone between his head and shoulder as he pulled shrapnel out of a kid's thigh. "How's he doing?"

Freedman's voice sounded tinny and unfamiliar, but BJ could hear the beginnings of exhaustion. "Well, physically, he's fine—or as fine as can be expected. But mentally…" A sigh. "Nothing's ever easy with Hawkeye. I'm having a little trouble, and I thought it might be good for him if you were up here."

"I'd love to, Sid, but it's like Colonel Potter said, we've got patients—"

"I've got two surgeons on a chopper heading your way. They should be there within the hour. And then I want _you_ on that chopper. You'll stay here a week, maybe more if he needs it. I've already talked to Sherman—all you need to do is get on that chopper."

"Sidney, you've got yourself a deal." Radar took the phone back and scurried off, and BJ met Potter's eyes across the O.R. "Well, Colonel?"

"It's fine by me, just don't stay longer than you're needed. _We_ need you, too."

"Where's he going?" Frank demanded.

"Back to Tokyo."

"Tokyo!" Margaret cried. "But Colonel, that'll leave only you and Major Burns here, and with all the patients—"

"We're getting two replacement surgeons," Potter interrupted. "One to replace Pierce, and one for as long as Hunnicutt's gone. That suit you, Major?"

Margaret sounded a little flustered as she said, "Well, I suppose it'll have to, won't it?"

_Back to Tokyo,_ BJ thought. _Sidney thinks I can help…but what can I do? I don't know how Hawk's mind works—if anyone does, it's Sidney, and if _he_ can't do it…_

"Doctor," Nurse Able prompted, "the patient…"

"Right," BJ said, shaking his head to clear it. "Right. Move your hand a little…there!" He pulled out the last piece of shrapnel and dropped it into the bowl with relief. "Corpsman, another patient!" Until the replacements arrived, he was stuck here, healing nameless people, tending to the endless flow of bodies, when the only body—or mind, if it came to that—he really cared about healing was miles and miles away.

&.o.&.o.&

"Why don't we go for a walk, Hawkeye?" Freedman asked from the foot of his patient's bed.

"A walk?" Hawkeye repeated sweetly, mockingly, looking pointedly at his shattered leg.

"I have a nice wheelchair here just waiting to be used. The nurses say some fresh air would be good for you, and there's a nice little park out back, with a path and trees and some fountains… What d'you say?"

"Do I have much of a choice?"

Freedman smiled. "Not really, no."

"Then lead on, McDuff."

It was a nice day outside, one of those neutral days—warm, but not too warm; breezy, but not too breezy; quiet, but not too quiet. In silence, Freedman rolled his patient down the peaceful stone paths until they came to a duck pond. There, watching the ducks, was a tall man in fatigues, hands shoved deep into his pockets, who turned with a small, forced smile when Freedman cleared his throat.

"Oh," Hawkeye said blandly. "It's you."

BJ lifted a hand, ran it through his hair, let it fall back to his side. He couldn't think of anything to say, not with Hawkeye looking at him so hostilely, as if BJ were a bug who'd landed in his coffee. Finally, trying to smile, he agreed, "It's me."

"Well, now that we have that established—driver, I'd like to go back to my suite."

"Not yet," Freedman said lightly. "The air is good for you. Walk with us, BJ."

"Walk with _you_, maybe," Hawkeye muttered. "_I_ seem to be a little impaired in that particular area."

"Hawkeye," Sidney said, pushing the wheelchair forward; BJ fell into step next to it. "Would you care to repeat what you told me yesterday?"

"No, I think I'd rather not."

"I'd like you to."

"Sorry, honey, I'm just not in the mood."

Freedman and BJ exchanged glances, BJ's worried, confused, hurt; the psychiatrist asked Hawkeye, "Then is there anything you _would_ like to talk about?"

Enunciating crisply, Hawkeye said, "Not particularly."

They walked along in silence until Freedman said, "I told BJ some of what you told me yesterday—"

"Oh, wonderful, that's just wonderful—what ever happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?"

"He's here to help you, Hawkeye. We both are. But in order to help you, you have to let us in. You can't be afraid to talk."

Hawkeye twisted around in the wheelchair to stare up at Freedman. "Fear, Sidney? You want to talk about fear? Let me ask you—have you ever had a bomb go off in your face? There's fear for you. You see the flash and think to yourself 'I didn't realize it was the 4th of July.' But then comes the explosion, the skull-shattering boom, and do you know what comes after the boom? Anyone? Anyone? No? Well, then let me tell you—nothing. You're deaf and blind and numb, and you think to yourself 'Dear God, this isn't right,' and for that one instant, the world just stops, and you realize it's the end of the line, th-th-th-that's all folks."

"But it wasn't the end for you," Freedman said softly.

Hawkeye's voice was thick, heavy with tears he refused to shed. "No. Seems not."

"Sidney," BJ asked suddenly, tightly, "is it possible to have a minute or two alone with him?"

"Of course," Freedman said gently.

"Of course," Hawkeye echoed, his voice layered with sarcasm.

There was a bench at the side of the path; BJ sat on it, and Sidney placed Hawkeye near it before wandering farther down the path, just far enough to give the two the illusion of privacy. Hawkeye let his hand fall onto the wheel of the wheelchair, pushed at it, moved forward a little; pushed it again, made a half-circle, another push brought him full-circle, and again, around and around and around and around—

"Would you stop that?" BJ snapped.

"Why? Does it annoy you?"

"Yes, it annoys me."

"Oh." Hawkeye kept spinning.

BJ reached out and grabbed the arm of the wheelchair, the place where Hawkeye's right arm should have rested. Two similar, yet very different, shades of blue met: one confused and desperate and hopeful, so hopeful, the other tired and beyond hope, lost in the darkness, that unforgiving silence, with no hope of any way back to the light. It chilled BJ, made his voice tremble as he whispered, "I didn't abandon you," trying to convince himself as much as Hawkeye—but he saw the lie in the words even as he said them.

"Didn't you? Then why am I trapped up here while you're down there?"

BJ frowned in confusion. "I'm right here, Hawk." A desperate plea for forgiveness—I'm here _now_.

"Only because Sidney was afraid I'd get creative with a pencil. If he hadn't brought you here, you'd still be there, cutting up patients and reading your letters and having a merry little time."

"Hawkeye, I _want_ to be here. I…I want to help you."

"Sure." Hawkeye pushed fiercely at the wheel, yanking the chair from BJ's fingers and continuing to spin.

BJ sat there, staring at his friend in grief, not knowing what to do, what to say, to fix this. He could fix Hawkeye's body, that was easy, a cut here, a stitch there—but his mind? BJ didn't know any more about Hawk's mind than anyone else, and how could he fix what he didn't know, what he couldn't recognize? "I'm not going to leave," he said softly.

"Why not? There's nothing to keep you here. _I'm_ certainly not asking you to stay." To himself, in a whisper BJ couldn't hear because of the desperate screaming at the back of his head, that terrible sound of the silence, Hawkeye added, "Not anymore."

BJ waited for the words to come, the proper parry to throw into the swordfight that was conversation with Hawkeye—_parry, riposte, feint high and strike low, dodge, always moving, fast-paced, you had to be quick to keep up with him._ But the words wouldn't come, and BJ finally rose slowly, tiredly, and went to get Sidney. BJ couldn't decipher the shades of darkness in the wounded man's eyes, and Hawkeye didn't see the tears on his friend's cheeks.

&.o.&.o.&

Freedman lowered himself into the chair, crossed his legs and frowned faintly down at his patient. "BJ tells me you're not talking to him anymore."

"Indeed," Hawkeye agreed tersely, rapping his knuckles on the bed frame.

"Any reason why?"

"I'm not feeling particularly amicable towards him at this point in time."

"He really did come to help you, Hawkeye."

"After abandoning me."

"You keep saying that—he abandoned you. It sounds so vague, so undefined."

Hawkeye turned to face him with a tight, mocking smile. "You want to tell you in what way or ways I feel he abandoned me?"

"It might make things a little clearer."

"Well then, let's start at the beginning. One would think the main purpose of a best friend, which is what I would consider BJ to be under normal circumstances, is to help and comfort the other part of the duo when he needs it. As you may have inferred, dear Freud, I happen to need a little bit of comfort at this particular time in my life, and the one who should be here to give me that comfort decides to go gallivanting off to stitch up people he doesn't even know—half of which he probably can't save anyway—instead of being here, to help me. You'd think as his best friend, I'd have some sort of privilege over strangers. But I guess that's asking too much."

Sidney was silent for a moment, staring thoughtfully at his patient; and then he said, "Hawkeye, I'm going to ask you to do something that may be difficult for you: I want you to try to use _logic _and _reason_. Two things you seem to be presently incapable of. What would you have done, if he was in your place and you were in his?"

"I would have stayed here, with him. Helped him. That's what best friends are supposed to do."

"Even if you knew that dozens of men would die because you chose to stay here?"

"People wouldn't die—"

"No? You think the whole world stops just because Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce is having a little trouble coping? The war's still going on, Hawkeye, and we're in the middle of a big push—that means lots of wounded, and every surgeon's needed. The 4077th was already shorthanded with you here—they couldn't afford to lose BJ, too. And I know for a fact that BJ did everything he could to stay here—I believe he even offered to give his house, his wife, and his daughter to General Hammond—but they couldn't spare him. It took two MP's to get him on the chopper back to Korea. He did not _want_ to leave you here—he told your doctor that you couldn't be left alone in your present condition, and that you'd most likely crack if you didn't have a familiar face around. But they _made_ him leave." Though his voice hadn't risen any louder, Sidney was worked up, angry at Hawkeye's thick-headedness and his insistence on being blindly stubborn; he leaned back in his chair, forcing himself to breathe calmly, and waited for his patient's reaction.

Hawkeye avoided looking at him, but Sidney could still see his eye, could see the thoughts as they flashed through Hawkeye's mind, the shifting colors like the tide of the ocean. Finally, eye dark with confusion and regret, Hawkeye whispered, "I didn't know."

"No. You didn't know, because you didn't _want_ to know. You were much too happy with being angry at him, because it spared you from being angry at yourself. Am I right?"

Hawkeye didn't answer the question, but Freedman could see the answer in his eye. _Bullseye._ "Is he still here?"

"No, he was worried he'd punch you if he stayed around any longer, so he went to his hotel room." Freedman smiled, a sad little smile. "You can be quite cruel when you put your mind to it, you know."

"Will he come back?"

"I might be able to arrange that, unless you plan on breaking the poor boy's heart again like you did today."

"Was I really that mean?" Hawkeye asked, his voice shaking, his eye full of pain and the self-loathing Sidney had come to recognize all too well.

"Yes, Hawkeye, you were. But you're lucky—he still thinks of himself as your best friend, and it's in the nature of friends to forgive and forget. However, I have the feeling he'll have a few words for you when he comes in tomorrow. If you'll excuse me…"

Hawkeye didn't watch Sidney leave; he was too lost in his own thoughts, eyes flickering and changing, colors swirling, darkness flowing over only to be pushed back by light, tears glimmering occasionally and blinked quickly away, face changing little but eyes showing all the emotion he'd once been able to hide so well.

The world kept turning.

**To Be Continued**


	4. Chapter 4

Sorry this took a little longer—I had some trouble deciding which way to take the rest of the story, and along the way, I discovered a plotbunny for another fic, which I then had to scribble down quickly before it hopped away…

**Warnings:** -blink- Surprisingly, nothing. This chapter's clean. Kind of a feel-good chapter.

**- The Sound of Silence -  
Chapter Four**

Hawkeye was antsy the next morning, fidgeting, his visible eye darting around constantly. Thomas, the orderly assigned to watch him during the day, had seen patients act like that before—it was usually right before they tried something really stupid. So Thomas kept his eyes on Dr. Pierce—Hawkeye, he reminded himself, he got angry if you didn't call him Hawkeye—and waited to find out what the source of the unrest was—though he already had an idea: Dr. Freedman had told him yesterday that Hawkeye would be getting a visitor today, and that there could potentially be trouble, not from the visitor but from Hawkeye. "No need to worry about it," Dr. Freedman has said, "just keep your eye on them."

The visitor was a tall man, a soldier—no, a doctor, there was that little whatever-you-call-it, the doctor-symbol, pinned to his collar, as well as the silver captain's bars—who made a bee-line to Hawkeye's bed and stood there with his hands shoved into his pockets. He looked young, as far as doctors went, but he had that same look in his eyes that everyone got after spending any amount of time too close to the war. Hawkeye went very still, and he and the visitor stared at each other in a very intense sort of way that made Thomas a little uncomfortable. To try to end the staring contest, Thomas folded the magazine he'd been reading, cleared his throat and asked the visitor, "You Dr. Hunnicutt?"

"That's me," BJ affirmed, his eyes not leaving Hawkeye.

Thomas cleared his throat again, and started to get up. "Well, they told me to ask you to try to not kill Captain Pierce—we kinda like him around here."

"I'll do my very best," BJ said as Thomas shuffled away to give them some privacy.

"He seems a little Radar-esque," BJ said as he wandered slowly over to the side of the bed, scuffing his boots on the floor.

Hawkeye nodded mutely, his eye wide and glazed faintly with tears, face sadder than BJ had ever seen it before. He finally choked out, "Listen, Beej…I'm sorry. I was stupid, and stubborn, and unreasonable, and—"

BJ smiled, lifting his hand up to stop the flow of words. When that didn't work—"I just went a little nuts, you know…had a little bit of my cheese slide off my cracker"—BJ said loudly enough to be heard over Hawkeye's litany, "Hey, jello-head—shut up."

Hawkeye did, blinking in surprise; and then, tentatively, he returned BJ's smile. "Do you think you can ever forgive me?"

"Consider it done," BJ said, dropping into the vacated chair. "I can't say that I understand what you're going through, but…I can understand why it would make you act…differently."

"Well-put, Ambassador. They should send you to the peace talks, and maybe we could all get out of here sooner."

"You'll be getting out soon…won't you?"

"Eventually. Sidney says he wants to keep me here until he's sure I won't…well, you know."

"Yeah." BJ averted his eyes—_taboo, taboo, don't think about it, don't talk about, and maybe it'll go away._ "Are you, uh, feeling any better?"

"A little. Sidney promised me a lollipop if I keep behaving like a good boy."

So they bantered, knocking the tennis ball back and forth; anyone who knew them well, had seen them interact before, would notice little difference in their behavior towards each other than at any other time before Hawkeye's accident; but with both, their words were slightly forced, strained, as if both were afraid to say something they shouldn't. It was as if a wall had begun to grow between them, a wall made up of the strain caused by Hawkeye's mistrust and BJ's uncertainty. They worked around the wall as best they could, but both knew it was there—and it terrified the both of them.

Two nurses stepped up to the foot of the bed, bearing fresh bandages. "Sorry, Captains," one said, "but it's time to change your dressings, Captain Pierce."

"They don't call me 'doctor' here," Hawkeye confided to BJ. It was said lightly, but BJ could see the pain in his friend's face. "I think they want to remind me that I'm a patient now, and don't know what's best for me."

The nurses smiled tolerantly. "Captain…"

BJ shifted a little uncomfortably. "I'll, uh…I'll go, then, if—"

"Wait." Hawkeye reached out to grab BJ's arm, fingers digging in like claws, his eye panicked. BJ saw him swallow hard before he asked softly. "Can…will you stay? I…I hate this part."

BJ looked up questioningly at the nurses; they both nodded, smiling with gentle understanding. BJ sat back down, firmly, resolutely; and when Hawkeye's hand quested down his arm towards his own hand, BJ wrapped his fingers around his friend's, offering freely whatever comfort Hawkeye would take, whatever light he needed to fight away the darkness. Not just because that was what a best friend was supposed to do, but because BJ had realized—during his private ranting and raving at Hawkeye's stubbornness and idiocy—that he needed Hawkeye now as much as Hawkeye needed him, and if it was left to BJ to pull Hawkeye back from the edge, he would do it gladly, willingly, because he had his own darkness to fight off, and he needed Hawkeye's light to do it.

&.o.&.o.&

"So you and BJ are talking again?" Sidney asked.

"I think I did most of the talking." Hawkeye reached up to rub gently at the right side of his face, released from its bandages. There were a few lacerations, and his eye was slightly red and swollen, but according to his doctor, he was looking much better than when he'd first arrived in Tokyo. "He's more the strong, silent type."

"Of course. What did you talk about?"

A faint smile crossed Hawkeye's face—the first genuine smile Freedman had seen from him since coming here. "He called me 'jello-head'. I don't think that even makes sense. And he asked me if I was going home."

"Oh?"

"Don't give me that all-knowing little 'oh'—I thought we were beyond that first-grade psychiatry."

Sidney leaned forward, draping his arms over his knees. "All right—then how did that make you feel?"

Hawkeye groaned. "Sometimes I wonder why anyone talks to you at all."

"So do I," Sidney admitted, leaning back with a smile. "Why do _you_ talk to me?"

"Because everyone else only wants me for my body. _You_ like me for my mind."

"Do you want to go home?"

Hawkeye sighed, switching effortlessly from joker to philosopher. It was a sort of controlled, refined schizophrenia. "That's the thing—and I've been thinking about it for a while. There's not much to do around here except think. I want to go home—I wanted to get out of Korea since before I got there, and right now I want nothing more than to leave this charming little slice of Hell, but… It's complicated, you know? I've met a lot of people over here, and I might not see any of them ever again. Take BJ—we live on opposite ends of the continent. We can write letters, have a few awkward phone calls, but it won't be the same. And I know I'm entitled to it, what with all I've been through, but it feels a little like cheating if I leave before the war's over. I wanna see how it ends, you know? You can't leave halfway through a movie, even if it's a terrible movie, because there've been a few good scenes, and it _could_ get better—you have to stay around until the end, because it could turn out to be a great movie in the end. Now, I'm not saying there's any way the war could turn out to be great, but some good things could happen, and if I'm gone, I won't ever know what could've happened if I'd stayed around. Does that make any sense?"

"Yes, it does."

"Good—then could you explain it to me?"

"Hawkeye, your trepidation is understandable—you've given over two years of your life to this place. You can't just walk away from that without any hesitation, without any second thoughts."

"But I can't stay—that's impossible, isn't it? I mean…what could I do?" His eyes flickered down to the bandaged right arm, and then quickly away. "I can't operate." A flat, emotionless statement, an incontrovertible fact.

"I'm no expert, but isn't there a possibility that there's some sort of solution lying out there somewhere? And if nothing else, I'm sure _you_, of all people, will be able to come up with something."

"I'm not a scientist, Sidney. I can reattach limbs—I can't recreate them."

"Then maybe you should go back to school for a few years, learn something new. I'm supposed to encourage my patients to expand their horizons, after all." Hawkeye shook his head wordlessly, his face tight, pained, that not-Hawkeye look in his eyes, and Sidney decided he'd pushed it far enough for tonight. "What else did you and BJ talk about?"

"Nothing important."

_Did I push him too far?_ Sidney worried. _Did I lose him?_ "Why don't you tell me anyway?"

For a while, Hawkeye didn't say anything, his eyes dull, troubled; then slowly, softly, he began recounting the trivialities he and BJ had discussed, the commonplace topics—but at least they'd talked. And even more, Hawkeye mentioned the awkwardness he'd felt talking to BJ. "It wasn't the same," he said worriedly. "It was like we'd been away for a few years, and didn't really know each other anymore." He turned his eyes, the sad, questioning eyes of a confused child, up to Sidney. "How do I make that go away?"

"Keep talking to him," Sidney advised. "Talk about anything—weather, sports, music—just talk. Remind yourself that he's your best friend, and that you trust him. And if you ever want a more private place to talk to him, just tell someone from the horde of nurses and orderlies, and it'll be done. All right?"

"Yeah, all right. Are you leaving?"

"Is there something else you'd like to talk about?"

"No, no, go ahead…will BJ come back tomorrow?"

"I don't think I could keep him away," Sidney said, rising from his chair. "Sleep well, Hawkeye, and keep eating."

"Are you my doctor now?" Sidney smiled and started to walk away, but Hawkeye called him back: "Sidney—thanks. For…all the stuff you've done for me."

"Like you said: that's what they pay me for. And it's always good to help out a friend." That said, he turned and left his patient, softly reminding the orderly to keep a close watch on Hawkeye. There'd been that same look on Hawkeye's face, that haunting mix of desperation and peace, when Sidney had first arrived in Tokyo to see him, and there was no way to predict at any one moment what Hawkeye would do in the next. Just as there was no way of telling how far Hawkeye could be pushed before he reached 'too far', or what he would do when he came to 'too far'.

**To Be Continued**


	5. Chapter 5

**Warnings:** Nada. Unless you really like this story, in which case you might experience some sadness due to this being the last chapter.

I could have made this extremely long, with just chapter after chapter of conversations between Hawkeye, BJ, and Sidney…but I think that would have gotten boring and tedious. Therefore, this is the last chapter (unless, of course, I'm struck by a lightning bolt of inspiration). Thanks to all of you who've made it this far, and enjoyed the trip.

**- The Sound of Silence -  
Chapter Five**

BJ was gone—the week had passed, and no matter how much he begged and wheedled, he couldn't get any more time in Tokyo. They needed him back at the 4077th—peace talks were on again, and the generals were trying to grab as much land as they could, which meant wounded pouring in everywhere. They couldn't afford to let a surgeon's hands sit idle. Hawkeye had told his friend he understood—BJ was needed elsewhere, it was fine, they'll come drag you away if you don't go on your own, and how would that look? So they'd said their goodbyes—because who knew if they would ever see each other again? Talking had helped, like Sidney had said it would, and they'd been more like their old selves whenever they'd talked; but Hawkeye could still feel the wall between them, even if it was only the sort of small, decorative wall you put around your garden. So there'd been a measure of awkwardness when BJ had leaned down to hug Hawkeye, and they'd both pulled away quickly, avoiding eye contact and rubbing at their damp cheeks. "Take care of yourself, okay?" BJ had said, gripping Hawkeye's shoulder. "Try not to make too much trouble for the nurses."

"Make some trouble for me back home." Home—when had he started to think of the 4077th as home? He couldn't remember the exact date, but it had happened, and he was homesick.

"Will do," BJ had said with a grin, and then he'd turned away, hefting his travelbag. Hawkeye had watched him go, watched his best friend leave; he didn't feel abandoned, but he did feel a little lost, and very, very lonely.

Sidney had left, too, not long after, having declared Hawkeye mentally fit. That also meant the orderlies had stopped guarding him, which only increased his loneliness. Add to that the fact that the kid who'd been in the bed to Hawk's left, who he'd talked to every once in a while, had been shipped stateside; and the geezer to the right never talked.

Hawkeye was alone, and he felt it. Could feel the darkness creeping in slowly, slowly, sneaking up on him, waiting for the right moment to spring and drown him in it. He held the light around him for as long as he could, but he knew it wasn't enough; it would fade, someday, and the darkness would be able to surround him. All that remained to be seen was how long that would take.

Major Jim Holland, Hawkeye's doctor, stopped by periodically to check on his patient. Each time, Hawkeye would beg, "Send me home or send me somewhere else, please!" And each time Holland would smile and pat Hawkeye's head like he was a little child, and explain that he was worried about the leg, despite Hawkeye's insistence that it was healing just fine. Hawkeye decided that Holland and Frank Burns would have gotten along just fine.

The orderlies seemed to think he liked being wheeled through the park, but he would have much preferred to lay in his bed with one of the books he'd persuaded the orderlies to loan him—anything to read, to keep his mind busy, to keep himself from cracking up again. He'd mentioned chess, and they'd found someone who knew how to play—another patient, a kid who couldn't've been 18. He was missing both his legs from the knees down. They exchanged names, brief histories—he was Billy Skeller, private, infantry; he'd rolled a jeep and gotten crushed beneath it—but they spoke little after that. They played chess for as long as the orderlies would let them, because it kept both of them from thinking of their lives, their situations, and allowed them to merely be lost in the game.

Hawkeye was in his bed, a tray across his lap, writing his name over and over again on a pad of paper. The scribbles were almost intelligible. He tried to ignore Holland, who came strolling into the ward with a grin plastered on his face, but the major stopped at his bed and said, "I've got good news for you, Captain—you're going home."

Hawkeye looked up, blinking in surprise. "Home?" Which home? MASH home, or stateside home?

"That's right," Holland said. "Two days from now, we'll put you on a plane to Honolulu, and from there you go to San Francisco, and then to Spruce Harbor, Maine. That's close to your home, isn't it?"

"Yeah…it's really close." _Home…I'm going home._ Why didn't it feel true? The words just didn't register—in one ear and out the other, leaving no lasting mark on the place between. Holland started to turn away, but Hawkeye called him back. "Major, is there any chance…any way you could send me back to my old outfit, before I leave? I just—I never got to say goodbye to everyone, and I've still got some of my things there…" And he wanted to go home before he went home.

"You were with a MASH unit?"

"Right, the 4077th. C.O. is Colonel Sherman Potter."

"I'll see what I can do," Holland promised. Which meant, as far as Hawkeye was concerned, that the chance of it happening was zero.

The next day, he was in the middle of a game of chess when an orderly loomed over the board. "Sorry to interrupt the game, but, Captain, there'll be a chopper here for you in about fifteen minutes."

"A chopper?" Hawkeye repeated blankly.

"To take you out to your old unit."

"My…?" Shock, a moment of utter numbness; and then Hawkeye's face broke into a grin that would have lit up the darkest night, and he would've jumped up and started to dance, if he'd been able to. "Well, what're waiting for? Come on!"

They checked all his bandages, rushed him over to the nearest chopper pad, and bundled him into the waiting chopper. He waved to them as the chopper rose into the air and whisked him off towards home. He wouldn't miss any of them, and he certainly wouldn't miss the hospital—but leaving them meant he was one step closer to a better place, the place and the people he _would_ miss.

&.o.&.o.&

Radar's bugle summoned the camp into the compound, and when they'd all assembled, Potter announced in his typical bark, "I have good news, troops. In about an hour, we'll be getting a very special visitor—a certain Captain Pierce." Ranks broke as cheering erupted, and Potter couldn't help but grin along with them. It was the best news they'd had in a very long time. "He'll be staying the night here, and then getting choppered back to Tokyo tomorrow for a flight outta here—they're sending him stateside." More cheering, and Potter waited for it to settle down before calling out, "Let's see what kind of a shindig we can have ready for him!"

&.o.&.o.&

Hawkeye was looking out the windows constantly, searching for anything familiar that would tell him they were close; and when he saw the first familiar landmark, a grin spread slowly over his face, widening as he recognized more and more; and then, finally, there was Rosie's Bar, and _there!_—MASH 4077, Best Care Anywhere! And the chopper pad, hordes of people crowded at the perimeter, waving, and Hawkeye convinced himself he could hear their cheers. The chopper touched down and the crowd surged forward; BJ and Klinger carefully lifted him from the chopper and into a wheelchair, and the crowd worked its way slowly into the camp, laughing and crying and singing "For he's a jolly good fellow." Into the mess tent, decorated with toilet paper and Klinger's dresses, and anything else the nurses had been able to find, where they toasted Hawkeye again and again; and all were crying and laughing, Hawkeye no exception, because this place and these people had become home to him, a second home, a slice of joy found in the middle of Hell, and no matter how far away he went, this place and these people would always be a part of him. For good or ill, this place and these people had changed him, reshaped him, made him both more and less than what he'd been; and for good or ill, he'd changed each of them; and no matter the physical, mental, or emotional distance between each of them, they would always have this, this place and these people, to bind them together: like a string of light, a lifeline, to help navigate through the darkness; or for some, it was like the darkness itself, clouding the light of the past and the future. For good or ill, they were bound together by time, by their memories and experiences; these people bound to this place and to each other, changed and unchanged, light and dark, the sum total of all their differences and similarities made into a whole by this place, this place that had claimed a piece of each of them, this place that none of them would ever completely leave. So they laughed and cried, sang and danced, drank, and for one night pushed away the darkness with the light of their bond and didn't think of what would happen when the light left; they had the light and, for now, it was enough.

**End**


End file.
